TOURISM
Alishan reopening delayed
The Alishan Forest Railway will not be able to open on Dec. 25 as previously scheduled after parts of it were damaged by Typhoon Dujuan, the Taiwan Railways Administration said. The agency last month announced that it expected to resume operations on the full length of the forest railway after repairs to the most scenic section between Fencihu (奮起湖) and Divine Tree (神木) stations had been completed. However, several parts of the rail line were destroyed by Dujuan, forcing the agency to cancel its plan. Meanwhile, the Chiayi Forest District Office said it had completed work to remove fallen rocks and trees brought down by the typhoon.
HEALTH
Dengue cases top 20,000
The number of dengue fever cases nationwide reached 20,241 as of yesterday morning, an increase of 352 from the previous day, according to the Centers for Disease Control. There were 17,278 cases in Tainan, while Kaohsiung had 2,636 and Pingtung County had 81, the agency said. In Taipei, 40 domestic and 46 imported cases had been reported as of 10am. There were two more suspected dengue fever-related fatalities on Saturday, bringing the total number of deaths to 56 nationwide as of yesterday morning, while 54 people remain in intensive care.
RECREATION
Balloon represents Taiwan
A hot air balloon from Taitung County, bearing a Republic of China flag, took to the air at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico on Saturday, an event that drew balloon enthusiasts from around the world. Taitung County Commissioner Justin Huang (黃健庭) was aboard the balloon for a 50-minute flight, the first by a balloon from Taiwan in the US, Huang said. Huang told visitors on the ground that Taitung has hosted several hot air balloon events over the past five years and that county government personnel have visited four continents to invite balloonists to take part in what has become an annual extravaganza in the county.
ENTERTAINMENT
Lang Lang to play in Taipei
Chinese pianist Lang Lang (郎朗) is to perform at a recital in Taipei on Dec. 16. He is to play Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, Op. 37a; Bach’s Italian Concerto, BWV 971; and Chopin’s four scherzos at the National Concert Hall, according to New Arts, the organizer of the concert. Lang Lang has visited Taiwan several times. In 1994, Lang Lang won first prize at the Ettlingen International Competition for Young Pianists in Germany. The following year, he won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Japan. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in New York City in 2001.
CRIME
Chao Yu-chu gets jail term
The Supreme Court on Thursday sentenced Chao Yu-chu (趙玉柱), father of former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming (趙建銘), to a jail term of one year and two months for embezzling NT$4.5 million (US$135,722) donated to the Taiwan Table Tennis Association. Chao Yu-chu, the head of the association at the time, was accused of using the money donated by Eslite Group founder Robert Wu (吳清友) to speculate on the stock market. Taking into consideration the fact that the case against Chao Yu-chu has taken more than eight years to conclude, the Supreme Court decided to reduce a 20-month penalty to a 14-month sentence, which cannot be appealed.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching